Mazurka
This ragged broom has been sweeping Hell
for too long, its straw singed from cinders
hidden in ash. When I try to whisk my
bedroom floor, it turns sooty, dirtier
than before. Same when I try to cleanse
my soul, I can’t do it. The devil
lurks in my tools. The simplest implements
harbor my mistakes; my smile grows more
crooked each year, eyes ever focused
on the wrong things: I missed the Perseids,
bedazzled by bracelets of flame.
The disobedient broom sheds straw
bristles all over the hearth. Women’s
work is never done. My mother was
a reluctant housekeeper, disdained
domestic chores, though she liked it clean.
My spouse seethes when she vacuums. The broom
turns in circles, etches a spiral
in the dust. Will it guide me to new
worlds? The shaft jabs a splinter in my
thumb, lodges in my flesh, becomes part
of me. Its ardor kindles my blood.
The smoldering broom insinuates
its spindly torso in my grasp; out
of the smoke swirl sprightly notes of Chopin,
a feverish Mazurka. The besom
leads, I strive to follow. Feet stumble
over embers, birch branches, tempo
erratic as my mercurial
pulse. Clumsy. Still, something shifts. Don’t all
things in this universe turn—world, sun,
our circulating blood? Whirling, my
crimes are sloughed, their smirch spun back to dirt.
© Terry Wolverton
Bio: Terry Wolverton is author of thirteen books of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, including Embers, a novel in poems, Insurgent Muse: art and life at the Woman’s Building, a memoir, and her most recent novel, Season of Eclipse. She has also edited sixteen literary compilations. Terry has received a COLA Fellowship from the City of Los Angeles, a Publishing Triangle award for nonfiction, and a Fellowship in Poetry from the California Arts Council. She founded Writers At Work, a creative writing studio in Los Angeles, and Affiliate Faculty in the MFA Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles.
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